SAQA and Jazz

A lot has happened since my last post: I’ve been to the Studio Art Quilt Associates Conference (SAQA) in Denver, visited my Mom and Sister there also, and attended the annual Jazz Festival in Old Sacramento. I’ve got a ton of links in this post so be sure to check them out. Now, where do I start?

SAQA CONFERENCE IN DENVER

I am positively vibrating STILL over the SAQA conference in Denver! There was so much to learn, so many awesome artists to meet, so much art in Denver. For some inexplicable reason I did not take many photos while I was at the Conference. My days were jam packed with events and meeting people. There were attendees from all over the world-Taiwan, Africa, Europe and quite a contingent from Canada.

There were two main events the first evening: a Trunk Show of donated art by members in a 12″x12″ format entitled, “This Is A Quilt?”, and an “Artist Speed Dating” event. These first four photos are from the Trunk Show. The space they were displayed in had poor lighting; also, each piece was protected by a plastic sleeve, hence the poor quality of my photos, but the display of talent was amazing.

The first night of the conference, we were organized by tables for an “Artist Speed Dating” event. We each had 3 minutes to introduce ourselves to the group. My first table had John Walsh, surely the one of THE most important collectors of art quilts, Jean Wells, author, extraordinary quilt artist and proprietor of the Stitchin Post in Sisters, Oregon and Leni Wiener, one of my favorite art quilters-her ability to convey human emotion in a quilt-unparalleled. And that was just the FIRST table! Talk about feeling humble….

The conference continued with a lecture by Luana Rubin, founder of e-quilter-this woman has lived 10 lifetimes in one-it’s amazing what she has accomplished! Other panels and lectures covered curating and preserving one’s body of work.

There was a fabulous panel of quilt artists working in 3-D. Funny, they call quilters that work in 2-D, “the flats”-who knew? They were a hilarious group of artists which makes me think that 3-D quilt artists are just the coolest bunch of women and makes me want to be one of them just for the hang around factor!

The Colorado artists were lovely hosts. They were proud and knowledgeable of their region and its art and there is a TON of fiber art in the Denver/Golden area. We took a studio tour and hit 3 venues filled with fiber art. I KNEW that I was not in Sacramento-no way we have that much fiber art!

There were some fabulous mini-workshops going on also. I was able to take a workshop from Katie Pasquini Masapust on Teaching, one from Carol Larson on Successfully Entering Juried Competitions and one from the Managing Editor of Quilter’s Newsletter, Dana Jones on Getting Articles Published. I also learned a lot in a hilarious workshop on Photo Shop with the Pixeladies.

If you are a quilt artist and you are not a member of SAQA, JOIN NOW! It will rock your world!

JAZZ FESTIVAL
DH and I attend the Sacramento Jazz Festival every year and this year-well not one of our best.

You see, the weather in Sacramento over the Memorial Day weekend can range from over 100 degrees to 60 degrees. This year-in the 60’s, blowing a gale, pelting rain. Once we bought $115 worth of jazz and food tickets and a program, it began blowing a gale with some pretty serious rain. Mind you, the forecast was “10% chance of rain”. It rained for THREE hours and for the whole time the forecast was: “10% chance of rain”. What’s up with THAT???

We still had a great time watching the street performances (from under an umbrella) and listened to one performance while freezing in the pelting rain.

Jazz festival is usually a fabulous time-you’re surrounded by many venues of live music, street performers, marching bands,
ladies dancing, and food-not-approved-by-the-American-Heart-Association.

It’s normally a blast, no matter the weather. But come on, pelting rain and gusting winds at 60 degrees? Not so much. Maybe next year!

Had to throw in this random picture of the Basset-In-Chief on the job. Really, why do we keep him???